Thrift store faces closure after tenant skips out on $23,000 in rent, taxes

March 20, 2011|By Bill DiPaolo, The Palm Beach Post

The owners of a South Dixie Highway thrift store are in danger of shutting down after their tenant skipped town, leaving them with $15,000 in unpaid rent and a property tax bill of about $8,000.

"We're dying. Unless we start taking in about $2,000 a month, we'll have to close and sell the building," said Harriette Timmerman, who with her daughter, operates the store for the Association for Abused Women and Children Inc.

If the thrift store doesn't start taking in about $2,000 a month, the nonprofit association will sell their building. That money would be used to pay for the continued operation of the Donna Yetta Lazerwitz Shelter, a three-bedroom Lake Worth temporary home for up to seven women and their children.

In 2009, the last year figures are available, the association took in about $114,000. It spent about $121,000.

"One in three women is abused regularly. This is a very important cause," said Timmerman, of Lake Clarke Shores. She became involved in helping abused women after her son Earl, 35, was killed in 1990 by her former husband.

Timmerman and her daughter, Tima Fender, the two full-time employees, have run the thrift store, at 7110 S. Dixie Highway in West Palm Beach, since 2000 when philanthropist Marjorie Ulsamer bought and donated the 6,700-square-foot building across from Don Ramon restaurant.

Timmerman rented part of the building for $2,400 a month to a restaurant operator to meet expenses.

"She was a dream tenant; always paid on time. Then the economy went bad. To make things worse, our donations dropped about 40 percent," said Fender, standing amid the shoes, pots, appliances, clothes, toys, furniture, dishes, books and other household items. Except for the furniture, almost all items are less than $15.

Volunteers such as Valerie Castle, of Lake Clarke Shores, recently helped expand the store into the area that was the restaurant. Her husband Horatio, a former builder, also helped.

"I know so many women who are abused. It's an issue that is shoved under the carpet. Keeping this center open is vital to the community," Castle said.